Beetroot & blue cheese risotto

(This recipe was originally posted on January 30, 2007. I've updated the recipe considerably; the photo above is from October 2010).

I first served this kind of risotto at a dinner party in January 2007, right after the smoked salmon and dill tartlets. The inspiration for this dish back then came from Anne's beet risotto with garlic, fava beans and goat cheese and Angelika's beetroot risotto with orange and Gorgonzola (blog no longer available). As I had realised during a beetroot and cheese experiment, I knew I wanted to use a blue cheese in my beetroot risotto instead of goat's cheese. Furthermore, I was looking for a vegetarian risotto, so adding crispy bacon or other meaty garnish was out of the questions. I also wanted the recipe to have a slightly Nordic twist, however defined, so I ended up using a fabulous Finnish blue cheese, Aura.

As far as I can recall, the beetroot and blue cheese risotto was a hit with my guests back in 1997, and it has appeared on our table on several occasions since then. Here's how I've been making it recently. I LOVE how the piquancy of the blue cheese balances out the sweet earthiness of the beetroot. A truly excellent pairing indeed!

Beetroot & blue cheese risotto
(Peedi- ja sinihallitusjuusturisoto)
Serves 6

150 g raw uncooked beetroot
2 Tbsp butter
1 small onion or 2 shallots

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
300 g risoto rice (I used carnaroli)

100 ml dry white wine
1 litre hot vegetable stock
100 g blue cheese
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh chopped parsley to garnish

Grate the beetroot coarsely.
Heat the vegetable stock in one saucepan, keep it simmering under a lid while you start making risotto.
Heat the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add onion and sauté gently for 5-6 minutes, until onion starts to turn translucent. Add the garlic and fry for another minute or to. Make sure not to burn the onions!

Add the rice, stir until rice is glossy with butter. Add the grated beets, sauté for a minute.

Add the wine and stir over moderate heat until reduced by half.

Now start adding the vegetable stock, a ladleful or a few at a time. Keep stirring the rice gently to avoid sticking, or even worse, burning. Only add more stock when most of the previously added stock has been sucked up by the rice.
Risotto is ready, when the rice is cooked, but still al dente - this should take about 20 minutes.
Now stir in crumbled blue cheese, which flavours the risotto and makes it beautifully creamy. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with plenty of fresh parsley and serve.

UPDATE 14.2.2007: Check out these gorgeous beetroot risotto recipes over at Fiordizucca's blog (with feta cheese) and Bea's blog (with parmesan cheese).

Roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic

First of all, thank you all for your kind feedback about the upcoming Nami-Nami Cookbook! Your support means a lot to me...

I'm trying to blog more often this month, as the amount of dishes that I'd love to share with you is actually rather impressive - and now, that the cookbook is out of my hands, so to say, I may have more time. We'll see. I'll start with something rather easy, yet super-yummy that we had for dinner last night. It was exceptionally well received both our little daughter (she's 1 year and 9 months already, and a very good eater!) as well as her 74-year-old grandmother who was visiting. So this dish appeals potentially to a very wide age group :)

The recipe is from Jaden's Steamy Kitchen. I cannot even really say that I've adapted it in any particular way - apart from specifying the amount of bacon in the recipe (sold in 100-125 g packets around here) and changing the cooking times a little. I roast cauliflower quite often (usually just sprinkled with salt and drizzled with oil), and used the same timings and temperatures I'm used to (and these were both different from Jaden's).

Roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic
(Röstitud lillkapsas peekoni ja küüslauguga)
Serves 4

1 large cauliflower, cut into rather small florets
6 cloves garlic, cut into thick slices
100-125 grams smoked bacon, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 Tbsp olive oil
sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 200 C. On a large baking sheet, toss together the cauliflower florets, garlic slices and bacon bits. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Roast in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes until bacon is crisp and cauliflower is cooked and slightly golden brown here and there. Taste for seasoning, and serve at once.

Nami-Nami cookbook

Some of you may have been wondering about the irregularity and lack of posts on Nami-nami over the last few months. Yes, I've finally returned back to work after a long maternity leave, and that's drastically reduced the time I have for cooking and taking photos and blogging.

But that's not the reason behind the small number of blog posts.

The reason is that gorgeous-looking cookbook above that's out later this month in Estonia. It's called "Nami-Nami kokaraamat" ("Nami-Nami cookbook" in English, but the book is published in Estonian, of course) and it has 218 beautiful recipes that could be grouped under the general title "food for casual entertaining". All recipes are illustrated by lovely photos taken by myself and my dear K, and all the chapters - and the gorgeous cover - are done by the extremely talented and wonderful Ximena Maier (yes, Lobstersquad's Ximena), whom I have the honour to call a dear friend.

The book is published by a major local publisher, Varrak, and there's a small introduction of the book in Estonian on their website here. I'm very excited - hope that you're as well :D

So, that's what's kept me so immensely busy over the last few months and weeks. All I have to do now is wait and see - the book's out on November 25th or so, and the official book launch event is on December 1st here in Tallinn. More details to follow!